WHITE

SPACE

Do you understand the

p o w e r  of white space?

Do you know how to effectively use white space in design?

Do you consider white space when writing captions for social media?

Do you know how different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn handle and display white space, and what this means for you, a content coordinator or publisher, who is responsible for posting content?

Q: What is w h i t e s p a c e?

Raquel: White space could mean more to you than you think. White space is often referred to as “negative space”, meaning it could take the form of a background pattern, a photo, colour, or texture. It is a great tool to balance design elements for better visual communication. White space is important to consider, whether you’re focusing on content, design, the user, or your brand message. Without white space, people would experience feeling lost in information, or “information overload”. Even when there is not a lot of information, whitespace can be used to contribute to the overall feeling associated with a message.

Natalie: I use white space to separate topics and break up content so that it’s more digestible for the end user. Content should be organized in groups separated by white space to easily identify sections of ideas.

Hayley:
From designing a corporate website, an event  poster, an information-heavy brochure or manual, or writing a caption for Facebook – white space is an important element  to convey your message as effectively as possible!

White space can make the exact same information “hit differently” based on how it’s used.

White space is especially critical when there is a lot of information.
White space is what allows us to pause and take a breather before taking on the next chunk of information.
White space helps organize content and visually break up ideas.
White space helps with information flow and is great for skimming key points.
White space creates visual elegance and balance, improves comprehension, increases legibility, guides the reader through a specific reading in order, and improves the reader’s focus.

A guide to using white space on social media

On social media, you don’t have the luxury of styling and formatting with different heading sizes, bold, italics, underlines. You simply have one section to write your caption to accompany your video or photo.

On Facebook you are limited to FIVE lines of content before “see more…” appears for the viewer.

On LinkedIn “see more…” appears the moment you surpass THREE lines of content.

On instagram you can’t space a new line out after an emoji, but you can after bullets or periods.

Another factor to consider when incorporating white space is how you content will appear on a desktop versus mobile.

With all the limitations on styling text on social media, what are the best options?

White space can be:
• Actual white space used by pressing “Return” key
• Spacing using bullet points or dashes to divide subjects
• Use of emojis 💥

On Facebook…

• Separate subjects and call-to-actions by pressing the “Return” key

• Incorporate emojis into your captions, especially before a call-to-action

On LinkedIn…

• Space out call-to-actions and hashtags by pressing the “Return” key

• Utilize 💙  emojis 🚀  to separate ✨  ideas

On Instagram…

• Incorporate emojis ☀️  into your captions since spacing with the “Return” key doesn’t translate properly 🌿

• Use bullets or dashes to separate caption from hashtags, as shown below:

EXAMPLE CAPTION
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#example #hashtags

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